linkedin and workingnation panel
WORKINGNATION NEEDED A SOLUTION TO FILM A 5 PERSON PANEL, SPREAD AROUND THE COUNTRY, WITH SECONDARY CAMERAS ON 4 OF THE PANELISTS, FOR A TOTAL OF 9 REMOTE CAMERAS.
WorkingNation, a 501c3 non-profit that focuses on the future of work, reached out to us about a particularly interesting shoot. They were working with LinkedIn on a panel regarding Veterans in the workforce. The panel featured four panelists and one moderator, each in a different location around the country. In addition, they wanted the four panelists to be filmed directly and with a secondary B camera. The moderator would only need one camera. To make things more complicated, we only had one day on location to get the equipment in, set up and shoot the panel, and only one hour with the talent for the shoot.
The way our Cinema boxes are designed, we can actually control multiple cameras by plugging them into a box via HDMI. We have full camera control including Zoom, focus, ISO, white balance--essentially all the control we have in our boxes and-- we can see what the lens sees and can simultaneously trigger them all to record with matching timecode.
The panelists were in Charlotte, North Carolina, Washing, DC, Philadelphia, Seattle and the moderator was in New York City. Our producer Katie, found Assistant Camera Operators in each of these markets and coordinated the couriers, overnighting each a Studiobox Cinema box as well as a B-Camera kit kit with another Black Magic Pocket Cinema 4k, a tripod, an HDMI and an additional light panel. They were going to be our boots on the ground, delivering the boxes, setting up the B Cameras, putting on lavaliers and packing up.
In Los Angeles, we brought on four of our remote operators to each control one box and one B camera, with Ian Smith, our co-founder, acting as the Technical Director overseeing each setup and the moderator's Studiobox.
With a shoot scheduled for 1pm EST, we staggered our setups and client approvals all morning. Charlotte, NC was from 8:30am to 9:30am EST. In that time, we virtually location scouted and determined the best place for the Studiobox, dialed in the box settings, set up and connected the B cameras, and even had our AC do some light decorating to improve the background of the interview.
From there we set up in DC from 9-10am, Philadelphia from 10-11am, Seattle from 11-12pm and New York from 12-12:30pm. At 12:30pm with 30 minutes before the shoot, and sign off from Working Nation on all 9 cameras, we brought the Panelists and the Moderator into a Zoom and rolled on all of them. Each operator covered their two cameras, with Ian overseeing all of them. After the panel wrapped. We uploaded the 1080p proxy footage to the cloud, so the editors at Working Nation could get started that day. The AC's broke down the B Cameras, closed up the boxes and were met by couriers at their homes to ship everything overnight back to Los Angeles. In LA, we pulled the 4k footage off all 9 camera cards, backed it up, and dropped it on a hard drive we couriered to the WorkingNation office.
